Skip to main content

About this Blog.

 My name is Paula Fleming and I am a practicing artist who focuses on drawing. I have a BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting and Printmaking from Bretton Hall College of the University of Leeds and an in MA Fine Art from the University of Leeds. I am influenced by Flemish Still Life and copy books from the 1600's as well as scientific, natural history and anatomical illustration. I describe my artworks as free floating Still Life.

I used to only make art when I felt like it and the process of making art was totally intuitive. When I look at earlier drawings I have no idea what materials I used or why I used them, so what changed? I bought a tin of 12 drawing pencils by a good brand and became increasingly frustrated with them. They were gritty and scratchy. They ruined my flow. The inconsistency in the graphite cores made them incredibly difficult to draw with. Prior to that, I think I had been lucky. I had been using cheaper pencils and not had any major issues with them. This experience started my search for the perfect pencils.

I then wondered why I was drawing on expensive sheets of Hot Pressed watercolour paper and not on cartridge paper which is traditionally used for drawing. I liked the look, feel and weight of the paper but I also realised that 100% cotton watercolour paper has great archival qualities if you want your work to last. It is not prone to the yellowing caused by the acids in wood. I hadn't considered this before, imagining that most of my drawings would end up in a skip at some point in the future.

I also have a box of sketchbooks, some of which have been dumped in there because I felt the paper and thought I am not using that. The paper had a terrible texture. Often when you buy sketchbooks they are shrink wrapped in plastic so you cannot see or feel the paper. When buying online there is the same problem, you cannot see or feel the paper either. In the end it is a waste of money unless you turn them into scrapbooks or do a spot of installation or performance art with them. I often look at reviews so I have some idea what I am buying and if it will work for me.

So, do materials matter? I think the answer to that is both yes and no. Sometimes buying quality, expensive paper can put you off drawing on it, in case you ruin that nice sheet of paper or that beautiful sketchbook. I know all about that one. Artists can also create with pretty much anything. I have drawn on anything from greaseproof paper to wallpaper lining paper and used anything from dirt to ash. Joseph Beuys did amazing drawings on anything from scraps of cardboard, used envelopes and writing paper. He used floor paint, watercolours, gold paint and pencils. In this sense, materials don't matter.

What does matter is what you are trying to express with the materials. Floor paint or ash has completely different connotations to graphite. It's also useful to find materials that work with your drawing style. You may not even like your drawing style, but my advice is to just do you. Sometimes the materials you choose can tell you quite a lot about your style.  

My drawings tend towards the ghostly, sometimes they are barely there. I tend to use pencils in the lighter, harder range from 2B - 2H and the Faber-Castell 9000 pencils which have a lighter tonal range. I also do quite a bit of fine detail, so I need pencils that can do that too. Other artists might want deep blacks in their works in which case a different brand of pencils would work better. Compressed charcoal or carbon pencils might be their drawing materials of choice. Someone else might prefer pencils in the mid tonal range. Without having tried them, it is hard to know what you are buying, so a review is always useful.

My aim is to use the materials to make my art, then review them once I have given them a fair chance. I will mainly review traditional drawing materials as that is what I use in my work. I also want to review cheaper materials as well as more expensive ones, as expensive does not always mean better. I will also try to keep the reviews concise and to the point; you don't always want to read an essay. I hope the blog will be of use to you, Paula.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Faber-Castell 9000 Pencils Review.

I have to say that I love these pencils. For a start, they look good. I like the contrast between the dark green body and gold lettering. More importantly, they are really smooth to draw with. A lot of pencils are gritty, but since using these I have not had a single instance where I have come across a harder bit of graphite that scratches the paper. The graphite cores don't break either. Evidently the graphite core is bonded with the wood surround which makes them very break resistant.  They don't produce dust when you draw with them so the drawing remains clean. They also erase well with a putty rubber and are easy to sharpen. They are great for fine detail and also blend well which makes them my go to pencils. When I use other pencils, then use these, the difference is marked. I just love them. Compared to the Conte a Paris they run lighter. In the comparison above the Faber-Castell 9000 are on the left and the Conte a Paris are on the right. This is the only disadvantage of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 Pencils Review.

  The Staedtler Mars Lumograph are the premium quality pencils Staedtler make for artists. I was curious to see how they compare to the cheaper Staedtler Tradition 110 and Staedtler Noris 120 pencils. My first impression was that they have quite a lot of resistance when you are drawing. They feel very similar to the Staedtler Tradition pencils to draw with. They do not glide over the paper like the Staedtler Noris pencils which I fell in love with. The Mars Lumograph pencils come in 24 degrees from 12B to 10H which is a really good range. They are very consistent as they go up through the grades, there are no sharp jumps in tone unlike the Faber-Castell 9000, which change markedly between the harder and softer grades. Below is a comparison between the Mars Lumograph and Tradition pencils and the Faber-Castell 9000. The Mars Lumograph also blend well and I found them good for fine detail. The only issue being that when I sharpened them, the leads started splintering, making it hard ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Back to School: Staedtler Noris 120 Sketch Set Review.

I had an interesting journey with the Staedtler Noris 120 pencils. I decided that they are strange beasts, and nothing like the Staedtler Tradition 110 pencils I reviewed previously.  When I took them out of the packet they felt heavier than other pencils. This could be because, according to Staedtler, they are made from upcycled wood chips from   PEFC-certified, sustainably managed forests. They felt nice to hold so I was pretty hopeful that I would like them to draw with. I was even more hopeful when I realised that they literally glide across the paper. Initially, this felt uncontrollable, like gliding on ice. The first drawing I started on Langton Prestige hot pressed watercolour paper I gave up on. I just couldn't get it to work. I just didn't have any control over what I was drawing due to a lack of resistance from the pencils. The second drawing, in a sketchbook with smooth heavyweight paper, I initially gave up on too, but later went back and finished it.  I ...
Post a Comment
Read more